CFTC to Host Cryptocurrency CEO Forum to Discuss Digital Asset Market Pilot Program

On January 26, Goldman Sachs projects the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) January meeting will be uneventful, with broad consensus to hold interest rates steady. Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman are expected to back the decision, while Stephen Miran may be the lone dissenter. Goldman Sachs forecasts two rate cuts in 2026, with the first potentially coming in June.

On January 26, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas took to social media to announce that BlackRock has filed an official S-1 registration statement with the SEC for its upcoming iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF (submitted January 23). Fees and the fund’s ticker have not yet been disclosed. The ETF’s strategy aims to track Bitcoin’s price performance while generating additional income via an active management approach—primarily through selling covered call options on IBIT shares, with occasional trades tied to ETP indices. BlockBeats Note: Filing an S-1 marks the first step in the fund’s official SEC registration process. Next steps may include 19b-4 rule changes, a Nasdaq listing application, and other procedures before the fund receives approval to launch and trade publicly.

January 26th — BitMine, the largest Ethereum-focused treasury firm, announced Thursday that its total holdings of crypto assets, cash and "potential projects" amount to $12.8 billion, per official sources. Key holdings include: - 4,243,338 ETH; - 193 BTC; - A $200 million equity stake in Beast Industries; - A $19 million equity investment in Eightco Holdings (NASDAQ: ORBS) — categorized as a "potential project"; - $682 million in cash. BitMine’s ETH holdings represent 3.52% of Ethereum’s total supply (120.7 million tokens). BitMine Chairman and Fundstrat analyst Thomas "Tom" Lee noted: "Over the past week, we’ve added 40,302 ETH to our holdings. Since mid-October, the ETH-to-BTC price ratio (ETHBTC) has climbed consistently — a trend we believe reflects investors’ recognition that Wall Street is building tokenization and other use cases on Ethereum. To underscore the scale of this activity, the Ethereum Foundation’s website has listed 35 major financial institution

On January 26, VanEck’s VAVX—the first U.S. spot ETF tracking AVAX—will debut on Nasdaq during Monday’s trading session, per official sources. The ETF plans to stake a portion of its AVAX holdings, with net-of-fee staking rewards distributed to holders. VanEck previously announced it will waive fees on the first $500 million in inflows.

Jan. 26 (The Block) — A winter storm battering the U.S. has sharply cut Bitcoin mining activity, knocking a large chunk of the network’s hash rate offline. Mining operators proactively reduced electricity use to ease strain on the power grid. Dubbed Fernan, the storm has dumped extreme cold, snow and freezing conditions across most of the U.S., leaving over 1 million residents without power. Grid operators issued energy-saving alerts in response. Foundry USA — the network’s largest mining pool — has seen its connected hash rate drop ~60% since Friday. Data from miningpoolstats.stream shows its hash rate fell from a recent peak of ~328 EH/s to ~139 EH/s. Foundry holds roughly 23% of the global mining pool hash rate market share. Roughly 200 EH/s of network hash rate is offline, pushing average Bitcoin block time above the protocol’s 10-minute target. Mempool data puts average block time at ~12.4 minutes. The next mining difficulty adjustment is expected to drop 15% — a built-in

January 26 — Market sources report that Strategy has allocated $264.1 million to add 2,932 Bitcoin to its holdings between January 20 and 25.